by Rita Herron
“A woman was in here!” He yanked his arm free, frantic to find her. Sweat poured down his face, and his hands were scalded from tearing away burning wood and metal.
The firefighter traded a hopeless look, then searched the room as well. But Jacqueline was nowhere to be found.
Maybe she had escaped….
But as he crawled over a bar stool, he spotted her cell phone. A foot away, he saw blood trailing outside by the door and had a bad feeling that she hadn’t escaped at all. Dammit. The fire had been a diversion.
The killer had Jacqueline.
* * *
JACQUELINE ROUSED FROM unconsciousness. A ringing echo in her ears triggered nausea and fear. The smell of blood and death filled her nostrils, her vision blurring with remnants of smoke and memories of the explosion at the Duboises’ café. Into the confusion popped flashbacks of the fire that had sent her to Pace’s hospital—then her mother’s harsh words of condemnation—then the memory of her father’s sightless eyes—the photos of Kendra faceless, stabbed and mutilated beyond belief. She closed her eyes against the images.
What had happened?
Think, Jacqueline, think. You have the key to this all locked in your head.
Retrace your last steps.
She’d been sitting at the bar when the explosion had occurred, then the smoke and flames. She’d screamed and wanted to find Damon, but something had hit her from behind. A piece of falling wood?
She blinked, trying to focus, then move, but her hands were bound behind her, and her legs tied to a chair. Panic zinged through her, and she squinted through the darkness, suddenly zeroing in on the fact that she was not anywhere near the café or Damon now. She was in a rotting room with dingy walls painted in blood.
Bile rose in her throat, and she tried to scream, but her throat was so dry from smoke, that no sound came out. God…where was she? Who had brought her here?
She had to get a grip. Figure out what to do, how to escape. How to find Damon…
“I’m sure you’re wondering where you are.” The smoker’s voice intensified her fear. It must be the man from the phone.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?”
“You’ll find out, when the rest of our party arrives.” His silhouette flickered in the thin light seeping through the edge of the boarded windows. Then the shiny glint of a knife blade flashed in front of her face. He raised it to her neck and she sucked in a sharp breath. He jabbed the point into her skin, then blood trickled down her chest. In spite of the courage she struggled to hold on to, a cry erupted from her, a shrill and pitiful sound amid the silence.
His vile breath bathed her neck. “A taste of what’s to come, sweetheart. Now relax and think about your cousin’s face. How pretty it is on you.” A nasty laugh followed, rumbling with menace. “You won’t have it for long.”
He made another slice with the knife across her thigh, bringing blood pooling to the surface.
He laughed again. Then he was gone.
* * *
FRUSTRATION AND PANIC TORE at Damon. The firemen continued to pour water onto his parents’ café, while his parents huddled in each other’s arms. His mother cried softly and his father stroked her back, murmuring soothing words of comfort, her Rock of Gibraltar as always. Just as Damon would like to be for Jacqueline.
Only he’d let her down. And now she might be in the hands of a killer, and he had no idea where to even look for her.
His parents’ earlier confession taunted him, and he mentally pictured a whiteboard, jotting down the facts. Antwaun’s birth father was the first Mutilator, although Antwaun was completely in the dark. Kendra Yates had been investigating Swafford, dirty cops, and had info on Pace and the E-team. Jean-Paul suspected Antwaun’s own partner of setting him up.
Jacqueline had been seeing Diego Bolton, a man who had killed her father as well as countless others. Damon and the E-team had taken him out, inadvertently hurting Jacqueline. Someone had rescued her and taken her to Pace. Then Pace had given her her cousin’s face.
But what did the first Mutilator and Antwaun’s birth have to do with any of this?
Damon’s phone jangled in his pocket, and he grabbed it, praying it was a lead. Cal’s voice echoed on the line.
“Dubois, it’s me,” Calvin rasped. “I thought you were meeting me at Max’s.”
He quickly filled Cal in on the latest.
“We’ll find the woman,” Cal said. “But I went to Max’s, and looked through his window. You have to come and see it for yourself. I think Max has the woman.”
Cal hung up, and Damon’s heart pounded. So far, Cal’s hunch was the only lead he had. And it made sense. He’d tried to contact Max several times, but he’d vanished.
Jean-Paul had been consulting with the arson investigator, and Damon knew what they would find. He recognized the pattern of the explosives. Hell, he’d used them before to smoke someone out.
He stood and approached his brother, then explained to him about the call. “I have to go. I may have a lead.”
His father pressed a hand to his back. “Son…we’ll pray you find her. But about Antwaun…”
“I won’t say anything yet,” Damon said. “But when this is over, Antwaun has a right to know. This secret…it could kill him if he finds out from another source.” Especially the press.
He ran to his car, jumped in and sped toward the address Cal had given. The traffic was abominable, the streets crowded with tourists and partyers gearing up for the holiday weekend. The flags representing the fallen soldiers mocked him as he maneuvered through the throng and honked his horn at pedestrians overflowing the bars and filling the streets in a drunken haze, oblivious to the urgency that had his blood pressure boiling and his chest squeezing with panic.
It seemed like hours, but minutes later he reached the address, an old brick building that had been renovated into lofts at the edge of town in a warehouse district. The tires screeched as he swung into the parking lot, killed the engine and jumped out. Yanking his Glock from the inside of his jacket, he scanned the area searching for Cal or Max. Two kids in their teens leaned against a Jetta necking and a cat trotted across the top of the ledge bordering the walkway. The Mississippi churned and lapped at the shore, and a bateau glided along the river’s edge.
He moved slowly toward the building, searching each corner of the warehouse perimeter in case he was walking into a trap. If Max was holding Jacqueline, he might be watching for Damon to arrive.
Behind him, the scrape of a shoe sounded in the quiet and shells crunched. He pivoted and noticed a homeless man loitering near the garbage cans. Breathing in relief, he inched forward, then slid against the wall, up the stairs. Cal was waiting in the shadows of the overhang and motioned for him to wait while he entered first.
They’d worked together on so many missions that they could read each other’s thoughts. Cal twisted the knob and the door swung open. Not a good sign.
Cal stepped inside, swinging his gun in an arc, taking the left while Damon took the right. The stench of blood and sweat nearly knocked Damon off his feet. He gulped back the terror trying to immobilize him, and forced his feet forward. Inside the loft, a one-room unit, he spotted the blood smeared on the wall.
Max appeared from the bathroom right then, and halted in shock as he spotted Cal’s weapon and Damon’s Glock aimed at his chest.
“Where the hell is Jacqueline?” Damon barked.
Max jerked his hands up.
“He’s got a gun!” Cal suddenly opened fire. The bullet slammed into Max’s chest. His body bounced backward and he went down, blood spurting from his chest and forming a puddle on the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LEX HEARD A WHIMPER of fear and knew that Crystal—Jacqueline—needed him.
He had to find a way to help her.
He fell to his knees and raised his hands to the heavens. His body was fading. The skin had completely disintegrated now. He was ready to accept his fate, the
burning inferno of hell if needed, but he didn’t want Jacqueline to suffer anymore. She didn’t deserve it.
Closing his eyes, he begged the gods to save her.
Had he not paid penitence enough to earn a favor? A brief reprieve so he could leave the hospital for where the killer held her.
After all, he had watched the blood drip from Pace’s body as his tongue had been ripped from his mouth with no emotions. No bloodlust or the joy that he once might have experienced. He was a more peaceful man.
The raw pain of dying splintered through him as if it were happening all over again, and he wept as he imagined Jacqueline suffering. The fleeting thought that if she died, she could be with him entered his mind, but he banished it. He did not want her at that cost.
A scream of rage filled his throat. Dubois had to find her in time….
Still, there had to be something he could do.
He closed his eyes, trying to speak to his grandmother, to summon her magic….
* * *
“NO!” DAMON SHOUTED.
Max collapsed onto the floor, blood spurting from his chest. Damon ran to him, dropped to his knees and jerked him by the collar. “Max, where’s Jacqueline? What did you do with her?”
Max’s eyes rolled back in his head, and blood gurgled in his throat as he tried to talk. Cal stepped up beside him, his gun aimed at Max’s head.
Damon shook Max. He couldn’t pass out or die yet. He had to talk to them. “Goddammit, Max, where is she?”
Max coughed and tried to lift his hand, but his strength failed him and his arm dropped down to the floor, then he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Fear gnawed at Damon’s chest, followed by anger, and he spun around and glared at Cal. “Why the hell did you shoot him?”
“He had a gun, man—he was going to shoot you!” Cal snarled.
“He can’t talk if he’s dead.”
“You don’t need him to talk. Just remember what it was like to be on the team, a brother.”
“I can’t do that anymore.”
“Yes, you can. You were born a killer. To find Jacqueline, all you have to do is think like one again.”
Go back into the world he’d left behind. To the man he’d begun to hate. He couldn’t do that.
But he had to in order to find Jacqueline.
Desperate for another way, he checked Max for a pulse, and found one, low but thready. At least he was still breathing. “We have to call an ambulance.”
“Hell, no,” Cal barked. “The E-team doesn’t work that way. Leave no witnesses behind.”
“I’m not with the team anymore, I’m a federal agent,” Damon said tersely. He couldn’t believe this was happening—one of his buddies and trusted friends nearly dead, maybe after killing Jacqueline, and the other asking him to compromise the investigation and his position at the bureau. He reached for his phone to punch 911, but Cal raised the gun again, this time at him.
“I can’t let you call the cops,” Cal said.
Damon opened his mouth to assure him he’d think of something to cover his involvement, but the butt of Cal’s gun slammed into his head, and he bit his tongue, tasting blood as he crashed to the floor and saw black.
* * *
TERROR MOUNTED AS THE seconds ticked by. Jacqueline struggled to untie her hands, but her attacker had secured them so tightly she couldn’t budge the cord. Instead the heavy rope cut into her wrists, scraping her flesh raw and sending blood dripping down her hands onto the sticky floor. She tried desperately not to imagine how much Kendra had suffered, but the sight of her cousin’s blood smeared on the walls only drove the truth home—her kidnapper had killed Kendra and intended to mutilate her in the same brutal way, then send pictures to flaunt his ugly violence.
She closed her eyes and worked her hands again, determined not to give up. Suddenly she felt a presence near her. Kendra?
No, Lex.
The scent of his ointment mingled with the vile odor of blood and death in the room. Slowly the sweet aroma of a woman’s perfume also tinted the air.
Had Lex and her cousin come to stay with her and comfort her as she joined them in death?
She definitely felt Lex nearby and tried to draw courage from his presence. Was that the reason Lex hadn’t moved on, because he was waiting on her?
Damon’s face flashed in her mind, the memory of his lovemaking replacing the pain, and tears filled her eyes. She thought of the little girl she’d met in the hospital, and how much she wanted children of her own, a family, a man to love her for eternity.
She didn’t want to die.
Outside, the sound of a car engine cut through the quiet. When a car door slammed shut, she began to twist frantically at the bindings on her arms, knowing that at any minute the madman was going to walk through the door and begin carving her up.
The wooden chair he’d tied her to creaked as she rocked it back and forth. It was old and rotting, and she managed to pitch herself to the floor, hoping the force would splinter the wood and she could escape. But she slammed her head onto the edge of the door as it swung open, and pain sliced her temple.
The shadow of the hulking man appeared, and a nasty laugh rumbled from him. “Thought you’d get away? Don’t think that will happen, princess.” He dragged her upright by her hair, and shoved the chair against the scarred wooden wall. Kendra’s blood had been painted on the slats, and she knew hers would be, too.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said in that coarse voice that grated on her nerves. “Thought you might like some company.”
Her head spun as he dragged Damon into the room. His hands and feet were tied as well, and he was unconscious, blood smeared across his forehead.
“Damon?” she whispered. Furious at the man’s sick, twisted games, she turned a raged look toward her attacker. “Why are you doing this? You have me, let him go.”
His laughter erupted, even more vile this time. “Oh, sugar, you don’t get it. But you will. Soon as lover boy wakes up, I’ll explain everything.”
“You’re a sick man,” she shouted. “You killed my cousin and murdered her mother.”
“And me,” she heard Lex whisper. “He injected me with the chemical that ate away my flesh.”
Fresh fury shot through Jacqueline. She had to fight for Damon, for herself, for Kendra and her mother, and for Lex.
The man kicked Damon in the gut, and Damon’s eyes jerked open. He looked disoriented for a moment, then his gaze found her, and sorrow and anger tightened his expression. His head whipped back to the man standing over him.
“Cal…” Damon croaked and glanced around. “It was you all along. God…where are we? This is where you kept Kendra—we had it boarded up.”
Cal laughed. “Boards. Boards couldn’t keep me from such a fitting place.”
“Soldiers don’t kill innocent women,” Damon snarled. “They don’t tie them up and prey on them, cut them up like some animal with a toy.”
“You killed an innocent woman,” Cal yelled back. Then he slanted his wild-eyed gaze toward her. “Oh, sugar, he didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Shut up, Cal,” Damon yelled. “Let her go. This is between you and me.”
Cal’s boots pounded the wooden floor as he stalked toward Jacqueline. He flipped his knife out and ripped her top, shredding it in seconds, then he sliced a thin line down her torso, drawing blood. She bit her lip not to cry out, but when he bent and licked his lips along her neck, tasting it, a low sob broke from her.
“Stop it, Cal. For God’s sake, stop it now,” Damon said between gritted teeth.
Cal aimed an evil smile at Jacqueline. “Your lover boy here isn’t the man you think, sugar.” He swung around behind her, lifted her hair from her neck, then slid the knife to her throat and positioned himself so he could watch Damon’s reaction. “He’s a killer just like I am. Part of a special team of assassins in the military.”
Jacqueline’s heart raced as the knife pricked her skin. Damon’s face twisted with
rage, but he didn’t deny Cal’s statement.
“Don’t you want to tell her, Damon?” Cal shouted. “Tell her that you’re the one who set the explosive that killed her boyfriend Diego.”
“Diego killed her father, the ambassador,” Damon snarled. “He was a known terrorist. He’d killed countless others, innocent women and children in villages all over the world.”
“You were there at his house, Jacqueline, the day we took Diego out,” Cal whispered in her ear. “Your lover boy set the explosive, then watched you scream for your life as the flames shot up around you and ate at your clothes and hair.”
“I tried to stop the bomb,” Damon said in a tortured voice. “Jacqueline—”
She shook her head no, pain and denial warring inside her. Damon had saved her from the hospital, had protected her, had made love to her with such emotion. She’d felt connected with him from the moment she’d seen him, had trusted him implicitly.
But the anguished look in Damon’s eyes confirmed that the maniac wasn’t lying.
“He left you to die,” Cal murmured. “Left you in there burning as he stood and watched the building crumble down around you.” He grinned toothily at Damon. “But he didn’t let that stop him from fucking you, did he?”
* * *
“NO…” JACQUELINE WINCED. “Please, Damon, tell me it’s not so.”
He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. He’d known his days were numbered, that he had to tell her the truth, just as he did his family. But to have her learn like this, while his old crazy partner sliced up her body in a slow torture…
And Max…Had he been innocent? Cal had shot him to throw Damon off….
He had to save Jacqueline, then call for help for Max. Let Cal kill him, but he could not let Jacqueline die.
He lunged up at Cal and tried to knock him away from her.
Cal slammed his fist into Damon’s face and sent him flying against the wall. Boards shattered, and Damon slid down in the grime on the floor, staring at Jacqueline with dazed eyes. God…how could he get her out of this?
Cal whipped around and sliced at Jacqueline’s skirt, stripped her until she wore nothing but her underwear. Blood dotted her thigh and torso where he’d cut her, and he jabbed the point of the knife above one breast, grinning at Damon as he carved a small E on her body.
